If the 5-year-old mare Brooklynsway runs to her best form, Ellis Park's $100,000 Groupie Doll Stakes (G3) on Aug. 13 goes through the daughter of Giant Gizmo .
Her earnings of $722,597 dwarfs her 11 other competitors in the one-mile test for fillies and mares. Her six wins have all come in stakes, including Keeneland's Hilliard Lyons Doubledogdare Stakes (G3) last year in which she defeated multiple grade 1 winner I'm a Chatterbox. Her body of triple-digit speed figures are tops.
Then there are her last two starts, a 19 1/2-length drubbing in the July 7 Iowa Distaff Stakes that marked her first race in almost a year after undergoing ankle surgery. Trainer Bernie Flint wheeled Brooklynsway back eight days later in the $100,000 Mari Hulman George Stakes at Indiana Grand Course, in which she pushed the pace before tiring to fifth in a race won by Groupie Doll entrant Tiger Moth.
It was a marked difference from the 2016 Mari Hulman George, which Brooklynsway won by 8 1/2 lengths before being sidelined with the bone chip. If the dark bay mare can recover that form, however, Flint is confident Naveed Chowhan's Ontario-bred will have another graded win on her resume come Sunday evening.
"They go to the farm, they get relaxed, you bring them in and you work them a couple of times and they work nicely," Flint said. "But you don't want to hammer on them because they're coming back. She had ankle surgery, and she threw a clunker. I wasn't going to run in Indiana, but she came back out of that race so well. She didn't get anything out of that race, it was just a poor work. If she'd gotten anything out of the first race, she'd have run much better at Indiana.
"I knew we were playing with fire, because she was off a very long time. But she came back good. We got her back here, went all over her and she was fine. You just get a lot of cobwebs in a year."
Brooklynsway is part of a well-matched field of a dozen fillies and mares that features John Gunther's homebred Tiger Moth as the tepid 7-2 morning-line favorite.
Tiger Moth's win in the Mari Hulman last time out halted a four-race losing skid and gave the daughter of Street Sense her first stakes triumph. She has knocked heads with some divisional stalwarts this year, finishing fourth to champion Stellar Wind in the April 14 Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) at Oaklawn Park.
Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen is running Winchell Thoroughbreds' Adore, who figures to be part of the pace, and Iowa Distaff winner Danzatrice, who should be kicking in late for Gainsway Stable .
Janis Whitham's homebred Walkabout, winner of the Matron Stakes (G3) at Churchill Downs this spring, is one of two graded stakes winners in the field, along with Brooklynsway.
Ellis Park, Sunday, August 13, 2017, Race 8Entries: Groupie Doll S. (G3)
PP Horse Jockey Wgt Trainer M/L 1 1Put Da Blame On Me (KY) James Graham 120 Michael A. Tomlinson 8/1 2 2She Takes Heart (KY) Channing Hill 120 Edgar A. Estevez 30/1 3 3She Mabee Wild (IN) Jon Kenton Court 120 Mark Danner 15/1 4 4Hone In (KY) Miguel Mena 120 Victoria H. Oliver 30/1 5 5Adore (KY) Gabriel Saez 120 Steven M. Asmussen 12/1 6 6Cced (KY) Joseph Rocco, Jr. 120 Brendan P. Walsh 12/1 7 7Danzatrice (KY) Shaun Bridgmohan 120 Steven M. Asmussen 4/1 8 8Tiger Moth (KY) Corey J. Lanerie 120 Brad H. Cox 7/2 9 9Walkabout (KY) Brian Joseph Hernandez, Jr. 122 Ian R. Wilkes 5/1 10 10Pinch Hit (KY) Fernando De La Cruz 115 Brad H. Cox 12/1 11 11Student Body (KY) Sophie Doyle 115 Christopher Davis 10/1 12 12Brooklynsway (ON) Calvin H. Borel 120 Bernard S. Flint 8/1
